Solving insomnia with wysiwyg, er, wsg

Yeah, it’s a late night, going to be later, and I want to sleep. Actually not insomnia, I’m having to stay up. I get wired running BGs so that’s out. So… I inflict myself upon you. Fair warning, you think I ramble NORMALLY… (grin).

Warsong Gulch. I think I dealt with this before, but let’s run it again.

10 people. Two objectives. yes, two. The OBVIOUS objective is to grab the flag from the other side and bring it to your station — capping (capturing) it. Each time you do so, everyone on your team gets 40 honor. In addition, the third cap gets you 20 extra honor for winning.

There is a second objective – earn maximum honor points. The only way besides the flag being capped to do so is honor kills. Right now the problem is that there’s no clear way to calculate what an honor kill is worth. (Hmm, yes, I did write about this recently. Oh well.) Everybody’s honor value depends on their level, is further modified by the lowest level involved in the killing (ie, who is within about 100 yards as near as I can tell), and finally is reduced by the number of times they’ve been killed. At this point in time, I use a working assumption that every honor kill will get me 3 to 4 honor points.

Let’s assume (notice that word, please) that you alternate victories – you win, you lose, back and forth. Let’s further assume that a team can normally cap a flag once every ten minutes. So if nobody’s playing serial killer, the game is about 30 minutes. Two games, an hour. In our assumption – one win, one loss – and further assuming you get no flag in your loss (worst case), then you earn just a little less than 2.5 honor points per minute. If you can play faster, you get more – slower, less.

Can you and your side kill enemy players at an average rate of one kill per minute? If so, you get more honor from honor kills than you get from capping the flag. It is really that ugly and simple.

Now let’s throw in some considerations – they matter, so…

If your side is on a roll – you’re doing a mass run down the middle and capping each flag in about 5 minutes apiece game after game – then stopping to do serial killing is a waste. 15 minutes per game is four wins an hour is about 10 points per minute — three to four kills per minute (sustained).

On a personal level, if you’re nowhere near the killing the only points you get are – surprise – from capping and winning. If you’re hiding the flag for your side to earn some honor kills… you’re taking one for the team. Let’s run the math. Let’s say there’s an average of 10 kills every run. Plus, with your hiding, there are another 20 kills altogether. (FWIW, I’m pulling those numbers from my butt. it’s based on memory experience – adjust to your experience or knowledge.) During the runs, since most of the stuff is trying to stop you, you probably earned experience. You get 140 plus (ballpark) 30*3.5 or 105 for 245. Those 20 extra kills? About 70 more points you missed out on. Which is to say about the same as doing two more flags.

It galls me to say this, but if you and your side want to earn lots and lots of honor, and you’re in control of the field of battle, the best tactic is to have your flag carrier running around in the center of the field, joining all the fun. If the other side caps… 40 points is between 10 and 12 kills. If you’re even somewhat dominating the field, you kill for a while, then cap. Then repeat.

It will be worse after 2.4. Then, honor doesn’t diminish. I’m going to swag that this means each kill has a value per person (level 70, approx 5-6 people in range) of ~5 honor points.

If you’re massing WSG for honor, the strategy is simple. Mass run to the other fort. Grab the flag. Mass into the center of the field, and intercept the other flag. In the interval between when it gets returned and the next idiot, er, brave fool runs into your meat grinder, just hunt down the other side. 10 kills, one flag cap. The other side “wins”, but you get more honor.

Please – out of sheer misery PLEASE – at some point just cap the frigging flag, ok?

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2 Responses to “Solving insomnia with wysiwyg, er, wsg”

Here’s a better suggestion, at least from my viewpoint (no idea if it results in more honor or not): Stay the hell out of WSG. I hate that place. And I don’t even think that’s because Alliance sucks so badly there in my battle group. I just don’t like it.

However: For those of you who enjoy WSG, Kirk’s analysis is pretty good. And I agree: Cap the damn flag and gtfo.

About…

I've experience with many priests of many races and specs on several servers. The more I play, the more I realize how much I do not yet know. This is a share of some of what I have learned.
My main these days is Zingiber on the Undermine server.